Day: April 5, 2017

I often have anxiety dreams, though it wasn’t until quite late in life that I realized that’s what these were. Dreams where my teeth are loose or fall out, or more commonly where I’m driving and my car has NO BRAKES. When that starts happening I know that there’s something going on in my life that I’m stressing about — but I never have those stress dreams about the actual event. I’m never naked at my thesis defense, or at school without my homework, though I do often find myself in perplexing situations without necessary items, like on the savannah without a car. None of my anxiety dreams seem to represent actual, real-life problems — except the teeth falling out one. I have terrible teeth.

The one exception is horse show anxiety dreams. I have horse show anxiety dreams that are about actual horse shows, and while the scenarios in them aren’t exactly realistic, they aren’t far off. More than once I have dreamed that I’m trotting down the centerline or cantering out of the start-box and Murray disappears from beneath me, and there’s nothing for it but to do the test or course on foot. Weirdly, this has never dream-happened to me regarding stadium.

A few nights ago I dreamed that I couldn’t find my white stock tie, and the only tie I could ride in was a black, straight, men’s tie*. It was mortifying! To top it off, I spent a good three hours getting ready, and with about two minutes to my ride time I looked into Murray’s paddock to see that he was filthy, unbraided, and totally un-tacked. I promptly woke myself up from that one.

* A straight, brown men’s tie was part of my winter school uniform from ages 6-13. I got quite proficient at tying a half windsor in my youth.

Before the July Camelot even in 2015 I had a ton of anxiety dreams, but the best one was also about a stock tie! This time I needed to pick up a stock tie about 3 hours before my ride time — reasonable, right? So we went to the local JoAnn’s fabrics — because that’s totally where one gets stock ties — and I hemmed and hawed over fabrics and finally picked a fabric and was ready to make my stock tie. But I wasn’t allowed to use the sewing machines at the back of the store! (For those of you unfamiliar with JoAnn’s fabric, communal sewing machines are not something they typically feature.) I somehow got my stock tie made/finished/purchased (it was some kind of glittery silver fabric, I know that much), but by that point my ride time was LOOMING upon us and the show venue was 45 minutes away.

So apparently I have serious anxiety surrounding stock ties? I’d better make sure mine is finished (crafting it this weekend!) and packed well before we leave for Twin!